Accent Karaoke: Acquisition of native-like accents of L2 learners of English

Second language learners often experience anxiety when it comes to interacting with a nonnative, and thus in many people’s views ‘incorrect’ accent. In this study I investigated intrapersonal accent change of native speakers of German with a high fluency level in English, one of whose target accents was RP, the other’s GA. The speakers were recorded reading two short text passages and singing along to a song. Both media included similar words and phrases. The aim of this study is to find out to what extent each speaker’s accent changes as the medium of output is altered, and in which medium non-nativeness is perceived more significantly. The study makes use of the exemplar theory, assuming that the GA accent of the song summoned up exemplar of encounters with a similar accent, and interpersonal accommodation theory. The latter is used on an abstract level, as there is no direct interaction with the singer. Yet, prestige of American popular music plays into this, and this study assumes that rather than increasing or decreasing the social distance, the speakers seek to decrease a distance measured in prestige or ‘coolness’. The results proved to be highly individual. In the more relaxed atmosphere the medium of singing created, for instance, one speaker showed fewer signs of nativeness (in terms of THstopping), while the other speaker exhibited fewer signs of nativeness while reading (in terms of hesitation). The speaker with an RP target accent showed Americanisation while singing in her vowel system, but not in her consonant system, while the speaker with a GA target accent showed more variation in this regard, but undoubtedly manifested more signs of colloquial GA features while singing.